Page 86 of Somewhere Only We Know

I leaned on the frame of the door, wondering if I should invite him in. Was he waiting for me to? The studio was small and the only place to sit was the little sofa or my bed. Either option felt too intimate. I probably shouldn’t. We might have apologised to each other, but I doubted we would be able to recapture the flirtiness of our previous conversations. Besides, I was leaving for Sydney in the morning and had booked a cab to take me to the train station after breakfast.

‘I feel such a fool.’ Jono shook his head. ‘I thought she told me everything. But of course she doesn’t. What teenager does? And on top of that, it’s such a blow to the ego to find they don’t need to run everything by you any more to make a decision.’

‘It is a blow,’ I agreed. ‘But it’s also an indication that you’ve done your job as a parent.’

He grinned. ‘You know how to cheer a man up.’

‘I don’t have a relationship with my own mother. And growing up, neither did Brontë. But one year, Mum gave her a pair of vintage boots for her birthday and Brontë loved them. I made sure she messaged her grandmother to say thank you.’

‘My dad drummed it into us to write thank-you letters,’ said Jono, leaning on the other side of the door frame. ‘He drummed rules in and drummed information out, never trusting me, always suspicious that I was up to no good. There was no way I could keep anything private. I wanted to be a different sort of father.’

‘Sounds familiar,’ I said. ‘Anyway, unbeknownst to me, Brontë and my mother started speaking to each other regularly after that. I was hurt when I found out. It felt as if Brontë was siding with her. But the truth was that she was as entitled to have a relationship with her grandmother as I was entitled not to. It didn’t change things between Mum and me, although I think Brontë hoped it would bring us closer.’

He nodded thoughtfully. ‘That’s the point Daisy and I are at now. She was hiding how much she misses her mum to avoid hurting my feelings.’

‘Things are much more straightforward when people are honest with each other about how they feel,’ I said, looking directly at him.

Jono met my gaze and the words hung between us for a second. He was the one to look away.

‘Andrea and I are going to have to work out something more formal for Daisy. As you can imagine, I’m not thrilled at that prospect.’ He gave me a wry smile. ‘But neither do I want Daisy disappearing off God knows where without telling me.’

‘What happened between you and Andrea is really sad, and you’re fully entitled to be angry at how she behaved.’

‘How she’s still behaving,’ he retorted. ‘Today’s escapade shows she’ll always do what suits her and to hell with everything and everyone else.’

I couldn’t argue with that. Encouraging her daughter to lie to her father, bunk off school and travel alone to a city she didn’t know well was fraught with risk, not least to Daisy.

‘Luckily you can move on from the marriage, start over,’ I said. ‘But Andrea will always be Daisy’s mum, just as you will always be her dad, so she will be in your life whether you like it or not. Today was a bump in the road you weren’t expecting, but your relationship with Daisy has survived. If you can protect your own feelings and try not to let Andrea rile you, I’m sure it will get easier.’

He nodded slowly and laughed softly under his breath. ‘Are you always this wise?’

I laughed too. ‘Yes, actually.’

My hand found the edge of the door ready to close it. The conversation felt like it had come to an end, although I didn’t want to say goodnight.

‘Thanks for coming over,’ I said, breaking the silence. ‘You should never go to bed on an argument – isn’t that the saying?’

He rubbed a weary hand over his face. ‘Crikey, I almost forgot why I came over. I haven’t even got to the point yet. I’ve got something special to show you, if you’re not too busy.’ He nodded to my bare feet. ‘You’ll need your trainers on.’

Two minutes later we were walking away from the winery and towards the forest that lined Ruby Creek’s driveway. It was pitch black and I turned on my phone torch to light my path.

‘You won’t need a torch,’ said Jono, slipping his hand into mine. ‘I know every inch of this place.’

My heart skipped a beat as I looked up at him. This was unexpected. Nicely unexpected.

‘Even the location of the snakes?’ I teased, nonetheless turning it off and pocketing my phone.

I’d seen several snakes since I’d been here and had learned not to scream and run away. But encountering one in the dark was way beyond my comfort zone.

He stamped his feet and led me off the path and into the trees. ‘There. Gone. Trust me.’

‘Obviously, I do,’ I replied. ‘Or I wouldn’t be out at night in the Australian bush without even asking what we’re doing.’

He gave a low rumbly laugh and squeezed my hand gently. ‘That’s one of the things I like about you, Maggie. Nothing fazes you.’

‘I’m not sure that nothing fazes me,’ I countered, loving the gentle ways that he made me feel good about myself. ‘But I’ll take it.’

‘We never really finished our conversation about you staying longer, did we?’ he said.